Close Enough
by Alory Shannon
Summary: He probably isn’t as surprised as he should be when she comes to him that night. One-shot drabble. Kakashi/Sakura; implied & unfulfilled Kakashi/Rin and Sasuke/Sakura.


Kakashi/Sakura. 'Close Enough'

* * *

He probably isn't as surprised as he should be when she comes to him that night. She slips in through his bedroom window, and his gaze happens across the calendar as he stands from looking over a scroll bearing the details of their next mission, and he's not surprised. He'd known she'd find him sometime today, the five-year-anniversary of Sasuke's defection, the eve of Naruto's only unkept promise, the beginning of the end of Team 7; he just hadn't expected her to find him here, in his apartment, and now, well after midnight.

She's been to his apartment before, stopping by to drop off a message from Tsunade or banging on his window on days when he's more obnoxiously late than usual, but never this late at night, and never alone and empty-handed.

He blinks at her, raising a hand in greeting, but she doesn't see it: she has her back to him as she shuts the window behind her and pulls the curtains closed. He watches silently as she turns to face him, the expression in his dark eye unreadable as she unzips her flak vest, shrugging it carelessly to the floor as she crosses the room, her hands already pulling up the bottom of her shirt. Instantly he's right there in front of her, his hands encircling her wrists before she gets it past her ribcage, his grip gentle but firm, forcing her to stop. She could easily break free, even without her incredible strength technique, but she lets him stop her, meeting that implacable gaze with one no less steady and intractable.

Neither moves for the space of several heartbeats, which Kakashi can feel throbbing through the thin skin of her wrists beneath his fingers, but when she lets go of the hem of her shirt, he releases her arms as well.

"What are you doing here, Sakura," he asks, though it's not really asking because it doesn't sound like a question, and it doesn't have to because he knows the answer already.

"Please, Sensei," she says, her voice soft, and like him, she isn't really asking.

It's tempting to throw her out just for that, that calm almost-but-not-quite-demand, but there's something in her stance, in the slump of her shoulders, the forced strength in her voice, that is oddly, hauntingly familiar, and parallels that he'd noticed before but had pushed away and ignored because he hadn't wanted to notice them suddenly come leaping out at him again, and for the barest instant he allows himself to imagine she's someone else. Then the moment is gone, but so is a large portion of his mental fortitude, and while the memories have made him as vulnerable as he ever is these days, he just so happens to do precisely the wrong thing and looks down to meet her gaze.

_You told me it would be alright,_ her eyes say, her expression just shy of accusatory. _So make it be alright. Make it be alright, if just for one second, one minute, one hour, one night._

"I'm not what you want, Sakura," he murmurs, part of him, some very selfish, deeply-buried part of him, wishing that this wasn't true; but then again, she isn't who he really wants either. "I'm not _who_ you want."

Sakura looks him straight in the face, slowly reaching up to pull his hitai-ate away from his left eye, and pointedly focuses her attention on the Sharingan.

"You're close enough."

Everything seems to blur then, both of them shedding clothing impossibly fast (his mask is still in place up until the last second, but once it's gone she's too busy gasping into his mouth as his hand finds its way between her thighs to have the presence of mind to get a good look at his face), and he's not sure which of them hit the light switch or how they ended up in his bed so quickly or why he doesn't already hate himself for doing this with his former student, regardless of how much she thought she wanted him to.

She doesn't feel right under his hands--too slender and bony, nothing like how he'd imagined Rin's soft, gentle curves would feel--but the light is dim enough to hide the fact that her hair is the wrong colour, and her eyes are closed so he can't see that they're green, not brown, and if he closed his own eyes he wouldn't notice that the stripes are missing from her cheeks.

But her hair is just about the right length, she still smells faintly of the hospital, of antiseptic and flowers and blood, and like all good medic-nin, she's got that delicious sense of perfectly-controlled chakra humming just beneath her skin and making her touch almost electric, and for once she's calling him _Kakashi_ rather than _Sensei_.

He closes his eyes.

Close enough.

* * *

Kakashi/Sakura – Together we breathe out the wrong names.


End file.
